DIY Photo Booth Backdrop

2013, your days are numbered!

Do you have plans to celebrate New Year’s Eve? What a fabulous holiday- bidding adieu to one year in style and embracing the possibilities ahead. Sparkle and bubbles and smiles!

For our Christmas party a couple of weeks ago, I decided to set up a photo booth area. Everybody loves a photo booth! I envisioned our guests donning Santa hats and Rudolph noses, smiling for the camera in all of their merriment. The resulting photos are such happy memories of a fun holiday event! It would be perfect as a last-minute addition to your New Year’s Eve shindig.

I imagined what would make a pretty backdrop for photos- a banner of some kind, some twinkling lights. I’m not generally a DIY-er, but I headed to my local Michael’s craft store and found some materials I thought would work: light cardboard, alphabet stencils, some hemp rope, and glitter spray paint. I also picked up a few other interesting crafty items, like white furry garland and silver snowflakes.

For the banner, I traced and cut out the letters from the cardboard to spell “Fa La La” and sprayed them with glitter in the garage. Then I simply stapled the letters to the hemp rope- the silver of the glitter spray hid the staples well. For NYE, you could spell out “Welcome 2014!” or “Cheers!”

I was surprised at how easily the photo backdrop came together! I found a clean gray sheet and tacked it up on the wall, then hung some leftover snowflake twinkle lights. I strung the “Fa La La” in between the lights and draped the fur garland and silver snowflakes here and there. When it was plugged in, it felt very festive and even a little bit magical.

I’d dug through our costumes from Halloweens past to find a few Christmas-y props: a Frosty hat, a couple of green feather boas, a few Santa hats. I’d also picked up some fun signs and props from Urban Outfitters. I kept them in a basket near the photo booth for guests to pick through and get silly with. Any costume accessories will do- let your guests get creative!

The only question with a DIY photo booth is who is going to take the pictures? With a house full of guests, I couldn’t be stuck in the corner with the camera all night, and I didn’t want to ask any of our friends to play camera man. My friend, Beth, solved the problem: the daughter of her friend was available to help and- bonus- she loves taking pictures!

In the end, there were a few issues with the photo booth. It was right near the front door, so a few of the photos were of guests with their coats still on. Some people were too tall for the backdrop or didn’t stand close enough to it. But overall, it was a super fun addition to the party. It was simple to put together, and the photos are fabulous!